


The Freaky Four

by luxshine



Category: NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-05-30
Updated: 2011-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxshine/pseuds/luxshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An accident with a disco ball, and a moon rock changes four fifths of *N Sync. And then, things get really dangerous for all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Underneath the Discoball

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of insanity brought to you by my obsessive love for superheroes and milosflaca obsession with the disco ball. Which reminds me, she helped to decide the powers for the guys (Because mostly? My ideas for Chris would’ve ended on the end of the world) as well as the origin. While they’re my words, the order of things of the first short scene –which of course, I can’t say here since they’re spoilers- were her idea. And of course, she did first beta. Many thanks to otherdeb for her fast beta. And this one is for ravenbat. I hope this brings a smile to your face.

The white, blinding light was the last thing Chris remembered before things went crazy.

They were in JC’s house, trying to convince him that, no, a disco ball was not a good alternative for a lamp in his basement, which now doubled as entertainment center when the moon rock that Lance had given JC as a gift after his last trip to Russia had started to glow. Chris hadn’t paid attention to that since he **thought** it was just reflecting the lights of the disco ball until the light from the rock was more intense that the one of the ball.

There was a ray of light coming from the rock and into the Disco Ball. That much, he remembered, but then the disco ball had reflected the ray all over the room and, while everyone had ducked, Chris was pretty sure he had seen Joey get hit before the whole room turned into a white ball of light.

When Chris finally regained consciousness, his body felt stiff. He blinked, trying to regain his bearings, watching how Joey was furiously dialing on his cell phone. JC was helping Lance to stand on his feet.

The room was very bright, and the floor was covered with smoke.

“Guys?” Chris asked, and tried to frown. His voice sounded hollow.

“Joe, I don’t think costumer service will be able to help,” Lance coughed. “What are you going to tell them, that the disco ball exploded?”

“I’ll think of something,” Joey’s face was red with anger. “Fuck, Lance, what if I had brought Bri with me?”

“Has anyone seen Chris?” JC asked, looking around.

“I’m here!” Chris said, but the guys didn’t seem to hear him.

“Joey, calm down,” Lance countered. “Where is Chris?”

“He was standing next to me just a minute ago.” Joey frowned, looking around, cell phone forgotten for a moment.

He looked straight at Chris, before turning to Lance again. “Fuck. Where **is** Chris?”

“I’m here!” Chris yelled, indignant. It was one thing that lately the press seemed to ignore him completely, but to have his friends do the same hurt.

Everyone turned to see him, their faces between shock and surprise.

“Chris?” Lance finally asked, tentatively.

“Oh, so you see me now?” Chris huffed. The light around him seemed brighter, somehow.

“JC, tell me you also bought a Sharper Image fancy lamp that turns on when you call it Chris,” Lance whispered, scared.

A loud crack was his only answer, and they all turned to see Joey who was staring dumbfounded at his hand.

On it, everyone could see the crushed remains of his cell phone.

* * *

  
Five hours later, they had gone past panicking and well into a weird calm acceptance that Chris was sure was just a stage before they either went insane or figured out what was happening.

It had took him almost half an hour to turn back to himself, and he still couldn’t believe he had been a lamp. JC had even given him a mirror so he could see it for himself.

A tall lamp, with a round, blueish light bulb.

Not a bad looking lamp, but Chris preferred being human all things considered. He didn’t know how he had managed to turn into a lamp, and he wasn’t sure how he had managed to go back to normal. He knew he was hungry, and he wondered when JC was going to remember he had guests who needed to eat.

“That light did something to you guys,” Lance said, for the second time in the afternoon. The fucker had managed to get out of it unharmed. “I don’t think we can deny that anymore.”

“If you let me call the disco ball company,” Joey began saying, only to be silenced by a chorus of nos.

“Don’t even think about it,” Chris said, glaring at Joey, “I’m not turning myself into a phone for you.”

Whatever the combination of moon rock and discoball had done to their bodies, the most obvious change had been to Chris, who apparently now could change shapes at will. Chris was sure that could be fun if he could learn to control it, and it was a lot less scary than Joey’s change.

Joey’s change was subtle. So subtle they hadn’t really noticed until he had broken his cell phone, JC’s cellphone, the phone in the basement and one in the living room, crushing them all to practically powder. As if that hadn’t been proof enough, Joey had also punched a hole straight through JC’s living room wall.

If things hadn’t been bad enough with a shape-shifting freak and a supe-strong freak, JC sparkled. It hadn’t been obvious in the basement since they all thought that the lights were JC’s emergency lights, but once they were out, and it was still bright enough to blind them, they realized the light was coming out of JC’s body.

Once Lance had pointed it out, the shimmer had dimmed a bit, but it was still noticeable. JC’s hair looked as if it had been dipped in glitter.

Lance had not changed. Lance was still normal, and Chris hated him a little for it.

“What are we going to do now?” JC asked. As he spoke, streams of light and glitter came out of his mouth. “I don’t think our medical insurance will cover this.”

“I don’t think the laws of reality cover this,” Chris grumbled.

“Chris, stop that,” Lance admonished. Instead of asking what Lance meant, Chris looked at the mirror he was still carrying. JC’s face blinked at him on the reflective surface, minus glitter. Apparently, he couldn’t mimic glitter. Sighing, he concentrated, trying to remember what he looked like, and had to suppress the need to scream as he saw JC’s features melt into his own.

The actual effect was shocking.

“Sorry,” he whispered to no one.

“You’ve got to be careful,” Lance decided. “We can’t let anyone know what happened to you unless you want to try and record our next album from Area 51. So we have to pray that this thing will fade.”

“What if it doesn’t fade?” JC asked, looking at his hand as the glow around it changed colors quickly, making Chris feel dizzy.

“It has to fade. It has to just be a temporary thing,” Lance insisted, starting to sound really freaked out.

“And if it doesn’t? What if it’s permanent?” Chris insisted. He was tapping his foot quickly against the floor, feeling really scared. He had been a lamp for an hour, that gave him the right to feel scared.

“Then you’ll have to learn to control it,” Lance finally looked at Chris, who stopped his tapping immediately. Lance didn’t seem to understand that they had the right to be freaked out. Of course, he wasn’t shining, breaking stuff, or getting his body rearranged every time he sneezed.

“What if we can’t?” Joey asked, sounding immensely sad.

No one had an answer to that.

* * *

  
The very next day, they had their first rehearsal on the mock stage, and Chris just wanted to believe everything had been a dream.

He could have fooled himself, if he hadn’t awakened looking like Joey. It had been a terrifying moment, when he realized he had even copied the red tips in Joey’s hair almost perfectly; so perfectly, in fact, that he had gone back silently to the room he shared with Joey just to check they hadn’t changed bodies during the night.

That would have been the cherry on the cake.

“You look like shit,” Justin told him, smiling brightly. Unlike the others, Justin looked really excited, rested and bouncy. Of course, Justin hadn’t spent the night worrying about becoming radioactive. “What did you do last night?”

“Sleep,” Chris said, forcing himself to smile. “What did **you** do? Drink all our coffee?”

“No, but you sure look like you need it. You don’t want to fall asleep in the middle of a song,” Justin answered, pointing to the coffee maker on the buffet table. Joey, Lance and JC were walking towards it, and Chris knew he wasn’t imagining the resentful looks JC and Joey were giving Lance. It was not that they hated Lance for being lucky and get out of the explosion without any changes, but the way in which he had acted afterwards grated on them all.

Chris thought for a second about starting a mock fight with Justin, just to try and forget all that had happened to them, when he saw the coffee maker explode in Joey’s hands.

“What the fuck?!” Lance was looking at Joey, somewhere between annoyed and scared, as Joey’s shirt turned darker with the stain.

Chris bit his lip, nervous. He didn’t think Joey had felt the coffee, but if someone else noticed that Joey had just been bathed in a hot liquid and hadn’t even flinched, their secret would be out.

“I’m going to clean myself,” Joey muttered quickly, running off. Chris just looked at Lance who had gone pale, looking intently at the charred remains of the coffee maker.

They managed to go through the entire routine without any incident, and Chris was starting to forget that they were supposed to be careful when two things happened in rapid succession.

First, during one of the Bye Bye Bye stomps, Joey’s foot went straight through the floor, breaking the planks.

When everyone rushed to see how Joey was, all the light bulbs over the stage exploded at the same time.

Chris groaned. Things were definitely not going well.

* * *

  
It turned out that Lance hadn’t got out of the ‘disco ball incident’ unscathed, but they didn’t notice his change until it was almost too late to keep their secret.

In the week that followed the incident, they all caused small accidents. The most noticeable one had been Joey’s jump through the stage, but JC had almost blinded one of their assistants just because she surprised him when he was talking on the phone, Chris somehow started mimicking everyone by accident which meant he had to keep his mind somehow focused to avoid changing in front of someone.

During that time, Chris had time to realize that he and JC had been the lucky ones. At least their powers could be hidden somewhat easily.

But Joey’s powers seemed to keep developing, instead of fading away as Lance had hoped. On that first night, Joey’s eyes started to glow red a little after he and Chris had decided to go and try to sleep a little. Only Chris’s quick reflexes helped him to avoid the beam that came out of them, melting the flower vase they had on the drawer.

While no one had noticed yet, Joey was leaving a trail of half melted soda cans and glasses all over, but Chris had thought of a couple of excuses to explain them if anyone asked.

Explaining why every single electronic device malfunctioned or worse, exploded, every time Lance came in the room was a lot harder.

“If we have one more ‘accident’ Johnny is going to think we’re cursed,” JC said, flopping down on the couch of the room he was sharing with Joey. Since they couldn’t risk Justin finding out what had happened, they always left him the single room and found ways to distract him when they needed to have meetings. This time, Justin was having dinner with Britney, which gave them more or less a free night.

“We need to either cure us, or learn to control this,” Chris said, his voice sounding deeper with every syllable. Joey, who was sitting next to him, hit him softly on the back of his head.

“Concentrate, Chris. You’re looking **and** sounding like Lance now.”

“Sorry,” Chris took out a little mirror he now carried with him at all times, and frowned when he saw Lance’s green eyes peering at him. The voice changes were new, now he was pretty sure he could imitate anyone perfectly, as long as he kept his mind somewhat focused.

“If that happens during rehearsals, we’ll be toast,” JC said. His shimmer, which was kept almost dim outside, shone with a blue, melancholic tint.

“It has happened,” Chris confessed, looking again like himself. He thought he looked thinner, but he couldn’t make his features change further. Absentmindedly he pulled out a Snickers bar from his jacket and started to eat. One thing he had noticed was that he was always hungry after changing. “That’s why I’ve been ‘late’ to the last five rehearsals. I get there in time, but looking like someone else.”

“You sound like them too now,” Joey had his eyes closed. Heat vision was cool in theory, but if he got angry, they could wave the room deposit goodbye. “We’re getting more powerful too.”

“Chris is right, we need to control this,” Lance said.

“How?” Joey asked, angry. “We have rehearsals all day, do you want to start a superhero camp at nights?”

“No.” Lance looked smug. That, to Chris, always meant bad news. “Next rehearsal, we’ll have another accident.”

“What?” The shimmering glow around JC turned an angry red, making Chris close his eyes. “That will only make us lose time!”

“Not this one,” Lance calmly said. “Joey, tomorrow, you’ll get your leg under the floor trap and…”

“No way!” Joey protested. “I’m not going to break my damn leg for you guys!”

“I’m more worried about the floor trap,” Chris whispered, earning a glare from Joey. “Joe, you *broke* the floor. I doubt the trap is going to hurt you. I bet you won’t even feel it.”

“Oh,” Joey frowned, slowly coming to understand Lance’s plan. “Oh! Sure. I can do it. But I don’t get it. If I can’t get hurt, what good will it do?”

“When everyone sees you going down, JC and I will make a distraction,” Lance continued, efficiently as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “And Chris will change places with you. Chris, can you fake a broken leg?”

“I guess, if I know what it looks like,” Chris nodded. He was the one with better control.

“Won’t people notice if Chris disappears?” JC pointed out.

“No, he’ll be ‘late’ to rehearsal, so he’ll miss everything. And it will give us at least a week or so to cope with the changes.”

* * *

  
The only drawback to Lance’s plan was that Chris had to stay focused on Joey’s shape not only while the paramedics took him to the hospital, but also during the diagnostic, the treatment and until they got his leg on a cast.

Chris had been momentarily worried when they gave him painkillers for a pain he wasn’t feeling, but to his surprise, nothing happened. He managed to remain focused on keeping Joey’s face on.

Of course, that left him alone and bored in his hospital room, after Lance, JC and Justin had left. Justin was quite shocked, still confused as to why ‘Chris’ hadn’t come to see ‘Joey’, and Chris couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. He had wanted to tell Justin about the accident, but Lance, JC and Joey had voted against the idea. Lance thought that the less people knew about their ‘abilities’, the better. Joey didn’t want Justin to think they were freaks, and JC didn’t give any reason, but he still voted against.

He was still grumbling about being left alone, and complaining to himself about the things he did for Joey, when a soft knock on his window pulled him out of his thoughts.

“Open up, Chris, someone is going to see me!” Joey was standing out of the window, smiling like a loon.

“How did you get up here?” Chris asked, shifting to his own features as he got up from the bed. He hoped the nurse wouldn’t come back while he was shifting his leg out of the cast.

“Surprise!” Joey said, opening his arms as Chris opened the window. And yes, it was surprising to see his friend standing like that, happy beyond words, while his feet dangled in thin air, in front of a window in a sixth floor. Joey was **flying**.

“Holy Shit, Joey! Come in before someone sees you!” Chris laughed. It was hard not to, watching Joey’s smile as he got in the room, his feet still not touching the floor. “When did you learn to do that?”

“After you guys left, I kind of start floating.” Joey laughed. “It’s cool, only that I haven’t figured out how to get down yet.”

“Have you tried unhappy thoughts?” Chris suggested, amused.

“That was my next idea, I don’t want you cooped here all day and tomorrow Lance wants Justin to see you visiting.” Joey half sat over the bed, hovering just an inch over the mattress, throwing Chris a backpack. “Get dressed, I need your robe.”

“Can you wait for me to get in the bathroom?”

“If you don’t want me to look at you naked, you can easily change into someone else. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re a lot better than us at this,” Joey said, very serious. “I’ve seen you practicing.”

“You have?” Chris raised his eyebrows, surprised. He thought he had been discreet.

“During rehearsals, I’ve seen you change just a bit of your face. So, give me that robe,” Joey insisted, so Chris turned around. It wasn’t that he was shy around the guys, they had shared enough showers to lose any modesty, but Joey was special. And he didn’t want Joey to notice that lately, his ribs were starting to show unless he focused on them. “I also brought you a couple of snack bars. I bet hospital food isn’t better than when Lance was here.”

“Thanks,” Chris said, putting on the shirt Joey had brought him. Then he helped him to put on the leg cast, grateful that it was not a solid cast. That would’ve been impossible to put around Joey’s leg. “You think this will work?”

“It has to,” Joey gave him a very soft pat in the shoulder. “You’ve got it almost under control, and JC’s glow isn’t that noticeable. As long as I don’t sprout wings and Lance stops short-circuiting everything, we’re cool.”

* * *

  
A week later, Chris could almost share Joey’s optimism. He still was too thin when he was not shape-changing, but it was nothing that a steady diet of, well, everything, couldn’t solve. They had a new meeting in JC’s hotel room, after they managed to convince Justin that it was a good idea for him to start checking time schedules if he really wanted to do his solo album. Chris thought it was a very bad idea to encourage him with that, but as long as the others were adamant in not telling Justin about their abilities, there was no other choice.

Joey had been alternatively faking a very good limp or sitting in a wheelchair that hid perfectly when he started floating, and Chris had to admit his friend was a very good actor. They had to sacrifice Joey’s dancing for the Pop Video, but Joey had shrugged it off, saying that it was for the good cause of avoiding being studied by scientists.

As soon as Lance got in the room, the light bulb of the lamp shut down. Chris supposed it was an improvement as it didn’t explode. Because there was no way he was going to go up in any of the stage harnesses even during rehearsal, unless Lance could promise that he was not going to make the computers explode as the coffee machine, the coke machine, JC’s brand new cellphone, and Chris’s laptop had done.

“So, how are we doing?” Lance asked, sounding tired. “Any new developments, Joey?”

“Freeze breath,” Joey sighed. That had been fun to watch for the first time, when Joey had sneezed and freeze Chris’s soda. “But I can control my strength and I don’t float anymore.”

“That’s great,” Lance sighed. Of the group, Joey seemed to be the one who had developed more powers and they all worried about that, because as long as Joey kept adding powers, it meant that they weren’t exactly out of danger. Any day now, they could develop more changes, and they all knew it. Besides, even if only Joey kept developing more abilities, that didn’t mean they were clear. After all, the heat vision had been thankfully easy to turn off, but Chris wouldn’t feel really safe until a month had passed and Joey didn’t grow a second head or started shooting laser beams from his fingers. “Chris?”

“Nothing new,” Chris answered with Justin’s more nasal voice. He didn’t change his face, only his vocal cords and a couple of bones under his skin. He had spent the best part of the week reading anatomy books to understand what was exactly what he could do and couldn’t do to his body. What had started with trying to fake a realistic broken leg was now a full on project, especially since he had discovered that every little change made him burn calories.

If he kept using those powers, he would starve to death unless he learned how to change things with the minimum effort needed. Small bone and cartilage changes were the easiest, and they did help to make his voice change.

“Show off,” Joey elbowed him playfully, and Chris could testify that Joey’s control had gotten better. He had barely felt the touch.

“Just never do that to me without warning,” JC said, smiling. “I can keep the glow at an invisible minimum, but if you surprise me, it’ll be like a damn Christmas tree, colors and all.”

“You can do colors now?” Lance asked, impressed. “On purpose?”

“Sure.” JC closed his eyes for a moment, and started laughing for no apparent reason. Suddenly, they all saw his glow come to life. It was a white, warm light that made Chris feel better just by watching it. Then it turned green, blue, purple, yellow and finally, red. “How was it?”

“Pretty,” Lance deadpanned, rolling his eyes. He didn’t look amused. “Why were you laughing?”

“If I’m not thinking about anything, they come out easier.” JC started playing with the blue sparks in his fingertips that danced to a song that only existed inside his head. “I have to keep my concentration to keep the lights out.”

“What about you, Lance? We know you don’t make light bulbs explode anymore, but did you find out what is it what you do?” Joey asked. Chris was glad someone else had asked the question. He was dying to know.

“I absorb electric energy, and send it back out again,” Lance said in a tone that suggested that he had been experimenting a lot to come to that conclusion. “That’s why my computers keep dying on me. I’m a walking power surge. It’s almost under control, as long as I absorb enough energy to keep myself charged. That’s why I haven’t been hungry since this happened.”

“So what do we do now?” Chris asked, rubbing his arm. “I don’t know if we can add superheroics to our schedule.”

“Chris, this isn’t a game,” Lance admonished, breathing slowly.

“We could get suits from wardrobe,” JC smiled at Chris, ignoring Lance and getting into the joke. As he spoke, the lights around his hair started to dance. “With masks.”

“Because the last thing we want is for the press to see our faces,” Joey nodded, amused.

“Well,” Lance practically yelled, making them all shut up. The lights around JC turned white and disappeared. “I think we’ve got enough control to star the tour as if nothing had happened. The doctors will check Joey soon and find nothing wrong with his leg, and we can pray for putting all this behind us.”

But Chris couldn’t help the feeling that it was not going to be so easy.

* * *

  
The tour started without more problems, so Chris could cross out ‘premonition’ from of the list of probable powers he had. He was still worried about that, especially as Joey seemed to keep getting new ones every day.

He was never going to forget the day when Kelly brought little Briahna to visit her traveling father, and Joey just took a look at her and ran to the bathroom. Chris found him with his head under the sink, as he was obviously trying to get rid of the taste of puke.

“What was that?” he asked, curious, as he handed Joey a towel.

“New power,” Joey explained, drying his face and keeping his eyes carefully closed. “Her clothes melted.”

“Wait. You’re getting x-ray vision and complaining?” Chris laughed, trying not to consider the lack of wisdom at laughing at a man who could currently crush steel bars without breaking a sweat. “I can’t believe you.”

“I wouldn’t if I had been able to stop at her clothes,” Joey pointed out. “Human bodies aren’t as attractive without skin on.”

Chris, who had been seeing exactly how a human body looked without skin on, and also varying degrees on how to take the skin off in an attempt to get more creative with what he now considered the lamest power after Lance’s, couldn’t disagree.

It took Joey a while, but when he finally could look at Chris without seeing him naked, he went out to apologize to a very worried Kelly.

The final count of Joey’s powers was, so far, super strength, invulnerability, flight, heat vision, freeze breath, x-ray vision, infrared vision, super speed and, to everyone’s despair, super hearing. They all joked with him that now ‘Superman’ was not just a nickname.

JC, so far, only shone. The spectrum of his light ran all the way to the infrared, according to Joey, so they all guessed that he might be able to shine in the ultraviolet frequency. What use that had, they didn’t know, but Chris knew that sometimes, during the concerts, JC let go of his control just a little, his lights joining their own, man-made light show.

Lance seemed happy to ignore his power. As long as they let him have an hour near an electric outlet so he could ‘feed’ before a show, there were no more incidents, for which Chris was very grateful. Everything on the show depended on computers, and he would hate Lance if the Space Cowboy harnesses suddenly malfunctioned because the man just wanted a bit of an energy snack.

And himself, he couldn’t deny he had fun being a shape shifter. For one thing, it made a lot easier to get past security without them noticing, and he could actually go out and enjoy himself without anyone recognizing him. Since his abilities also extended to inanimate objects and animals, Chris had been experimenting a lot.

Which explained why he was a pigeon outside the stadium just three hours before the concert. It was an interesting pastime, to see the empty stadium before the fans came and filled it. And in the small size he was in now, it put everything in perspective.

“It is done,” a man was talking in hushed whispers to his cell phone below the cable where Chris the pigeon was perched. There was no one else around, so Chris thought it was suspicious that he was whispering. And curious, since he thought he recognized the man as one of the many temporary crew members they had hired after one too many Lance-caused accidents. “I rigged the first harness from the right.”

Pigeons couldn’t frown, so Chris just leaned his head to the side. The combination of the words ‘rigged’ and ‘harness’ was not a good one.

“Hey, I told you I would do it,” the man repeated. “In a couple of hours, Timberlake will be history.”

And **that** phrase was more than worrisome. Sure that the man wouldn’t even notice a pigeon flying away, he took off, hoping to find Lance in one of his better moods.

He got to the hotel with no problems, but in his hurry, he decided to go straight to Lance’s window. Unfortunately for him Justin was there, arguing with Lance, Joey and JC.

“Dude, I’m starting to think you guys hate me,” Justin said. “When was the last time we went out together?”

“Justin, we live together. It’s no big deal if we don’t go clubbing every night after a show,” Lance answered, calmly and composed. It was a huge contrast with Justin’s angry face.

“We used to!” Justin stomped his foot on the ground. “Guys, we’re growing apart, don’t you see? Hell, I couldn’t even find Chris!”

“COO,” Chris cooed. While he could speak as a pigeon, he doubted Lance would appreciate it if Justin heard him. No one in the room seemed to even notice.

“Chris just went out for some air, J,” Joey said, trying to convince Justin. “He’ll be back in time for the show.”

“COO!” The window was open, so Chris flew right in and perched on Joey’s shoulder, startling everyone.

“Fuck! How did that got in here?” Justin swatted at him, but Chris didn’t even blink. He needed to talk to the guys, and getting Justin out of the room was step one in his not-so-well-thought-out plan.

“It seems to like Joey,” JC said, smiling. If pigeons could frown, Chris would have. He was sure JC didn’t know he was the pigeon, but even so the comment was too close for comfort.

Unfortunately, pigeons couldn’t growl either.

“Why don’t you go see if Chris is back?” Joey turned his attention to Justin, carefully keeping his shoulder still. Apparently, he had realized that it was odd that a pigeon would look for human company like that and that it meant that it was probably **not** really a pigeon. “I bet he wouldn’t mind going to a club after the show if you still want to go out.”

That was it. Chris was going to kill Joey. He was going to figure out how to become a functional dragon and kill Joey. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to spend time with Justin, but Justin was going to ask questions, and Chris hated lying to his friend.

“You want me out of the room,” Justin said. It was obvious that they were not fooling him, and Chris wondered when they were going to realize that. Justin was a lot smarter than they were giving him credit for. Then, he saw Justin’s eyes grow bigger, as if he had figured out something. “Are you guys having sex? Because if you are, I want to know. I don’t want in because, no offense, not my thing, but I want to know. We’re supposed to be friends here, yo.”

Chris almost fell off Joey’s shoulder trying to stifle a very un-pigeon like laugh. As it was, JC, Joey and Lance looked as if they had been hit with a baseball bat. Or a train, in Joey’s case.

“There’s no sex involved,” JC said, quickly. He was getting nervous, because Chris could see small sparks of glitter coming out of his mouth. “At all. Seriously Justin, you should go and wait for Chris. We’ll be down there in a minute.”

“Ok,” Justin smiled, looking a bit vacant, turned around and left without further discussion.

“What the fuck was that?” Chris asked, once Justin was out of hearing range. He flapped his wings once, before leaving Joey’s shoulder and landing on the floor, changing to human form almost immediately. He was really getting better at it.

“Hi, Chris. Care to tell us why you were a pigeon?” Lance interrupted, sourly.

“Never mind that, since **when** does Justin listen to us without a discussion?” Chris crossed his arms. “What did you guys do to him?”

“Nothing,” JC shook his head. “He probably thought the argument was overplayed. We had been going at it for a while before you came in. And Lance is right, why a pigeon?”

Aware that he was not going to convince his friends that there was something wrong if Justin let someone else get the last word, Chris told them what he had overheard. They had only two hours to figure out how to make everyone fix that harness without explaining that Chris knew it was broken because he had heard a man talk about it while he was a pigeon.

* * *

  
“We’re making a small last minute change,” Lance announced minutes before the show began. They were about to get into the boxes for the big entrance, so they only had a few crew members around. Chris had checked twice that none of the guys around them had been the guy who had sabotaged the harness and so they could put Lance’s plan in action.

“This is not a good moment to make changes, Lance.” Anthony, their floor manager, looked anxious. With all the unexplained accidents during rehearsals, Chris couldn’t blame him.

“It’s a small thing,” JC piped in, smiling. “Nothing major.”

“I’ll change harnesses with Justin,” Joey explained. “Instead of being next to Chris, I’ll take the one in the right. That’s all.” Joey explained, sitting on the box he would share with Lance.” To add some variety.”

“Wait. Why?” Justin frowned. He had made Chris promise they would’ve going clubbing after the show, after a long rant about how they were not as close as they used to be.

“As Joey said, it’s just a little thing to make the show different,” Chris smoothly lied. He knew it was a flimsy excuse. They rehearsed the shows to keep everything perfect and even small changes were simply not done like that. “Besides, that way you can hold my hand during the descent. Weren’t you complaining we weren’t as close as we used to be?”

Justin frowned, obviously not completely convinced. When they had started doing stunts like rappelling down from the top of the stage, Chris had been terrified and Justin was the one who talked him into doing the stunts, joking around to make Chris forget his fear. Now, he could do it without help, he had managed to get over his fear. Asking for help again hurt his pride a little, but it was a small price to keep Justin away from the sabotaged harness.

“Come on, Justin, it will be fun,” JC added, sitting down on his own box. His eyes twinkled with amusement.

“Ok, let’s do that,” Justin agreed smiling. “But next time I want the center harness then!”

* * *

  
They were up in the air, Lance, and JC to his left, Justin and Joey at his right Chris was keeping his eyes up front, not looking down. The fact that he *could* now do the descent without becoming paralyzed with fear didn’t mean that he liked it.

He turned to see Joey, just to check he was all right. Part of him still wanted to believe that he had been mistaken and no one had sabotaged Justin’s harness. But the lines of the harness weren’t tensed at all. Either something had happened, or Joey had decided not to risk it and fly all the way down anyway.

He hoped not. He could deal with the fact that now he, JC, Joey and Lance had superpowers. He could even deal with the fact that they were lying to Justin. But the idea that someone was trying to kill his younger friend was a little too much.

But if someone **was** trying to kill Justin, at least the white light had given them the means to stop it from happening.

And, now that Chris thought about it, that was pretty cool too.


	2. The grass is greener in the neighbour's garden

Lance sighed, watching the night sky.

He was bored out of his mind, and the only thing he wanted at the moment was to turn on his laptop and answer his emails: the one thing he couldn’t do because he had melted the power cord, and the hard drive of the last four laptops he had touched.

Even when he concentrated long enough to keep his energy surges controlled and turn the computer on, there was something that he still couldn’t figure out that kept making the internet signal get lost. When that happened, Lance would grow frustrated, and the next thing he knew, his laptop would explode.

Not for the first time, he cursed JC and his stupid disco ball.

He couldn’t even use his cell phone, because cells exploded faster than laptops. Getting the solo suite wasn’t fun anymore.

Lance grabbed the phone, and considered his options. On one side, he had never risked calling his friend Jesse from a landline. On the other, he needed a friendly ear. He was aware that he was being a little paranoid about hiding himself, but in the past few weeks, he had realized that he had very good reasons to be.

He still had nightmares where men in black suits came and took Joey, JC, Chris and him to a secret bunker in the middle of the desert. These were only marginally better than the nightmares where he caused a surge that killed everything electrical during one of their concerts, and Joey and Chris weren’t fast enough to save JC, Justin and himself.

“H’lo?” Jesse answered on the second ring, and Lance let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to share with Jesse what had happened, but he could at least talk to someone outside the group, and that was enough.

“Hey, Jess,” he said, smiling. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see his fingertips glow with a pale electric blue, like the shimmering of a screen. He knew very well what that meant, so he simply moved it closer to the electric outlet of the room. Electric energy came out of it and started feeding him, helping him to keep his levels balanced and thus, avoid a new explosion. “Sorry I didn’t call you before; things have been a little difficult lately.”

“I know, don’t worry. I wish I could join you for a while,” Jessie said, and Lance could picture him smiling. He wished he had a webcam. But those exploded faster than cell phones.

“We’ll be heading to L.A. soon; we could meet there.” Lance didn’t know how Justin and Britney managed to have a long distance relationship. While they had the advantage of being a more ‘media accepted’ couple, it was still easier for Lance to bring Jesse along for a while without someone realizing Jesse was his boyfriend.

But everything had been made harder because of that damn discoball.

If he had Joey’s powers, he could go to Jesse every night, and no one would be the wiser.

If he had JC’s powers, at least, he could still do his work instead of letting Freelance flounder without a head.

Even Chris’s powers were better than Lance’s. Chris could get out unnoticed, and no one bothered him if he didn’t want to be bothered.

“I hope. I miss you. You haven’t answered any of my emails,” Jesse’s voice sounded wistful, and Lance felt ready to cry.

“Sorry. I haven’t had much time lately.”

As a lie, it was terrible. But it was the only thing Lance could think of. He closed his eyes and listened to Jesse catching him up on all the latest news, while the lights of his room turned on and off by themselves, as Lance tried to balance his internal energy.

* * *

Joey hadn’t slept all night. He had roomed with Justin, which normally wasn’t a problem but since the accident, it meant that he just couldn’t sleep. When he slept, he lost concentration and some of his powers required concentration to stop working. If Justin woke up and saw Joey floating next to the ceiling, the secret would be discovered.

Since Justin was still convinced that they all wanted to get rid of him, Joey didn’t had the heart to tell the others he couldn’t room with the kid, so he just suffered in silence, with his eyes open, looking at the wall and wishing Kelly was there.

Until last night, that was.

He had been watching the wall, thinking about nothing except keeping his body **heavy** so he would not float away, when Lance’s voice whispered on his ear.

It took Joey a whole minute to realize that Lance wasn’t whispering to him, but that he was hearing Lance talk into the phone in the other room. While he knew that he had super-hearing, Joey hadn’t actively tried to figure out how to turn it on.

It took him three more minutes to block out Lance’s voice, and by that time, Joey knew a lot of things that he was sure Lance wouldn’t want him to know.

And while he was trying to block Lance’s voice, he turned his eyes to the ceiling that promptly vanished as his X-ray vision activated. Before Joey could understand what was going on, he realized he was watching the clear sky, the stars, and the moon a lot closer than they should be.

Telescopic Vision. Just what he didn’t need, a new power.

And, while he wanted nothing more than sleep now that they were in their bus, he needed to tell Lance what had happened. Everything that had happened.

“Lance, can we talk?” he asked the next day. They were on the road and out of the city when he managed to gather his courage.

“What’s wrong, Joey?” Lance sighed. He was looking out of the window, looking profoundly bored.

Joey took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

“I sort of lost control of my powers last night,” Joey confessed quickly. Lance turned to see him alarmed, obviously thinking that Joey had roomed with Justin. “I… accidentally heard your conversation with Jesse. I’m sorry.”

Lance’s face went pale, and Joey knew that he was remembering what was said last night. But before Joey could apologize, Lance’s eyes went from his natural clear green to a pale electric blue that bled out from his pupils and enveloped the whole eyeball. In seconds, Lance’s skin took a bluish tint and there was an electric pulse that forced Joey to close his eyes.

He barely had time to think of levitating an inch when the bus stopped suddenly, dead on its tracks.

“What the **hell** was that?” Joey asked, lowering himself back to the floor. Lance looked normal again, and even more spooked at what had just happened than at Joey’s previous words.

“I have no idea,” Lance said looking around. “You’re ok? I think that was a lot more energy than I’ve ever let out.”

Joey was going to say that yes, he was fine, when the door of the bus opened and their driver looked inside.

“I’m sorry guys, the battery just died. Is everyone all right?” When they both nodded, he seemed satisfied. “I can’t radio to the other buses since radio is also dead, but I flagged them down. We’ll be back on the road in no time.”

Once they were alone again, Lance spoke up softly.

“So now you know.”

“You know it doesn’t change anything, right?” Joey smiled. “You’re still my best friend.”

“Thanks, Joe,” Lance said, still not looking up. “I would’ve told you sooner, but… I didn’t think it was the right time. Not with everything going on.”

Joey didn’t need to be a genius to know that Lance wasn’t only talking about the superpowers. Very, very carefully, he sat next to Lance and hugged him softly.

He couldn’t hug Lance tightly, as he used to do. Joey had to watch every single one of his movements, even when he was trying to comfort his friends.

Joey sighed. He really hated his powers. At least JC, Lance and Chris didn’t have to worry about breaking their friend’s bones.

* * *

JC woke up with a literal bang.

He had been napping in his bunk as they traveled to their next venue. Chris had promised he would keep Justin occupied, and as long as he kept the curtain closed, there was no risk of his glow being seen.

Until the explosion woke him up.

It had sounded incredibly loud, right next to his ear, and JC open up his eyes convinced he was going to be engulfed in flames, only to see his half-lit bunk.

His body was shimmering with a yellow light, and there were small sparkles all around him.

Sparkles that fizzled and cracked like small fireworks.

“Oh, shit,” JC said, sighing. The small sparks around his head whirled as he did. He hadn’t had any development in the powers department, and he had wished the lights were it. But now that the lights had sound, he knew it couldn’t be just pretty lights. The wall in front of him had small circular burns, as if someone had decided to extinguish cigarettes while in the bunk. JC didn’t smoke, and he had the feeling that the burns were caused by the small lights.

Very carefully he raised his hands and focused on the tip of his finger, where a small, greenish spark started to glow. As if it was a marble, JC hit the spark, sending it flying against the bus wall. The spark crackled, then exploded with a bang, leaving a round mark.

“Shit, JC! What are you doing back there? Lighting cherry bombs?”

Before JC could answer, Chris opened the curtain quickly. Behind Chris, JC could see Justin’s back, as he was talking on his cell phone.

“We have a small problem, Chris,” JC said, between clenched teeth. “I don’t think I can room with Justin anymore.”

When the tour had started, Lance had proposed they carried on as usual, keeping the rotating room accommodations, the same tour buses, everything as to not clue anyone in on the fact that they had powers. And they had all agreed. The only possible exception was if their powers became impossible to hide.

JC had been praying that it didn’t happen, and that their powers stayed as they were. Obviously, his prayers hadn’t been answered.

“Don’t worry,” Chris told him, smiling in an obvious attempt to comfort him. “It will be alright. As long as Lance, Joey and I keep rotating rooms, Justin won’t notice. He won’t think you’re avoiding him or anything.”

“I hope you’re right,” JC muttered. He felt conflicted about it. On one hand, he now understood why Chris wanted Justin to know about their powers. It sure would make things easier. But JC had known Justin longer than the others, and he knew that Justin wouldn’t be able to see that it had been an accident. Sure, he would say that he understood, but at the end Justin would resent them for having powers he didn’t have.

JC knew that because, deep down, he was a bit jealous of Chris and Joey. Their powers didn’t make them have to be careful every second of the day. If JC as much as stopped thinking about not shining, the light would come by itself. And sure, he did enjoy adding a bit of light to their shows, but that didn’t mean he wanted to sit there during an interview thinking “Please, God, don’t let me shine tonight” or, at a club, not listen to his girlfriend just because he was trying to keep the sparkles in his hair from calling attention to themselves.

Joey could **fly**. What could be bad about it? JC knew that sometimes, when they were at the hotels, Joey would just fly up and stay there for hours. Chris? Chris had freedom. And JC would’ve given up everything to get that.

* * *

Why they had gone to a club after the concert, Chris had no idea. The day had been filled with accidents, as Lance had explained when they had their daily meeting about ‘that thing we don’t talk about with Justin’.

Joey kept losing control of his powers, JC had new ones, and Lance had managed to kill the battery of their bus by being upset over something.

Over what, Chris didn’t know. Lance hadn’t elaborated on that point.

They all were saying that Chris was lucky that his powers weren’t changing. They all congratulated him because he had better control over them. So Chris was the lucky one to get the same room as Justin, at least until Lance, Joey and JC managed to stop being obvious when not thinking about their powers.

Which meant, lying more to Justin.

Chris really wanted to corner JC and ask him once and for all why he was so adamant against telling Justin the truth. As far as Chris was concerned, if Justin knew that JC sometimes shone brighter than a Christmas tree, Joey could leap tall buildings with a single jump, and you just didn’t leave your gameboy™ near Lance if you really wanted to keep your latest high score, things would be easier for everyone involved.

He drank his beer, starting to feel depressed. He had lost count of how many beers he had drunk that night, but it didn’t matter. Just as pain killers didn’t have any effect on him, it seemed that now his body processed alcohol in a completely different manner. He never felt the pleasant buzz of being slightly intoxicated, and hangovers were a thing of the past.

That last part could’ve been seen as an advantage, but Chris was too busy feeling sorry for himself to admit the possibility of any upside to his situation.

He looked around the club. Lance was standing next to the wall, where the exit sign blinked and flickered, trying not to catch anyone’s eye. Chris sighed, his friend looked lonely and bored and part of him wanted to go with Lance and try to cheer him up. But Lance had been treating them all as if it was **their** fault that he couldn’t use his power for something useful, and Chris was still a little mad at him.

JC and Justin were surrounded by girls, which was not unusual. Justin flirted a little and danced a lot, but it was never serious; Chris knew that. Justin was always thinking about Britney, no matter what. JC, on the other hand, was still healing from his latest breakup – Bobbie wasn’t letting things go easily - and he didn’t seem interested in anyone this time. But still, woman after woman came to JC, danced for a while and then left him alone, which was unusual in itself. Normally, they picked one partner for the whole night.

JC was also shining. It was not easy to notice, but Chris could see it if he squinted, a small, pale greenish light, that got mixed with the lights of the club and the smoke.

Chris took a last sip of his drink, and searched among the crowd until he saw Joey with a tall blonde with long hair. She was flirting, smiling and laughing at all the right moments, but Chris could see that Joey’s heart wasn’t in it. His smiles looked fake and forced.

Chris walked to where JC was dancing, figuring that he would just call it a night. It wasn’t until he actually talked to JC when he realized he was at eye level with his friend.

“C, I’m going back to the hotel,” he said, wincing when he realized that his voice was softer. He had changed his vocal cords without noticing, and that explained why he was hungry. “Wanna come?”

“Excuse me, miss, do I know you?” JC smiled at Chris, obviously not recognizing him.

Chris sighed, mentally rearranging his vocal cords and hoped that JC would recognize his voice – even though he was now apparently a woman - since JC had called him ‘miss’.

“It’s me, JC, Chris.” Chris leaned closer, whispering in his friend’s ear. He was rewarded when JC’s eyes grew wide with surprise. Inside the whites of JC’s eyes, Chris could see tiny green sparkles.

“Oh, wow. I didn’t recognize you with the new… hair cut,” JC said, loudly so all his entourage wouldn’t suspect anything. “Sure, you want to call the…my friends?”

“No, they’re busy. I just want to get out of here.” Chris sighed, looking down. He had huge breasts and he could see the blonde hair on top of his head. He wanted to change back, but he couldn’t in front of witness. “Maybe grab something to eat.”

“But JC, you were going to dance the next song with me,” a cute brunette pouted. Chris felt a little bad; just because he wasn’t in the mood, shouldn’t mean that JC had to miss the fun. He was about to excuse himself when JC held his shoulder and smiled at the girl.

“Sorry, my friend isn’t feeling well. I’ll call you, ok?” JC said, knowing it for the very lame excuse it was. But to Chris’s surprise, the girl smiled as if convinced. “Have fun.”

“Sure thing, bye JC!” The four girls around them said at the same time. It looked a little creepy in Chris’s opinion.

Once they were outside the club and into their car, Chris let himself change. Almost immediately, his stomach growled.

“You ok, Chris?” JC asked, worried.

“Yeah, just a little hungry,” Chris said, smiling weakly. The others hadn’t noticed **yet** the little price tag of Chris’s powers, and they had no reason why, since their powers didn’t come with consequences to their own bodies. He was not going to clue them in. “I can order some room service when we get there.”

“Well, I’m glad you rescued me from those girls,” JC said, as the car started moving. They had come in two cars that night, so they didn’t need to wait for the others. “I don’t know where they came from.”

“What do you mean?” Chris frowned, remembering how weird they had looked saying good bye in synchrony.

“I just asked one of them if she wanted to talk, and then the group just kept growing. They didn’t leave, not even when I danced with just one of them.” JC said, lowering his head. “No matter what I said, they just stayed around.”

Chris nodded, in silence. He understood JC. Fans could be scary, even moreso now that they had to keep a new secret from them, on top of every secret they were already keeping.

* * *

“Justin, are you paying attention?” Britney demanded, crossing her arms across her chest.

“Yeah, sure,” Justin said. It was not strictly true. He had no idea what had been Britney talking about, he had been thinking about the guys again.

Lance had found out that Britney had a week free. JC had suggested that Justin invite her along. Joey had said that he and Lance could go to the three man bus to leave Justin and Britney in the double, so they could be alone. Chris had snorted, and said that it would’ve less obvious if they just got them a hotel room, and then he had wished Justin luck.

His friends were willing to spend nights sleeping cramped just to let him be with his girlfriend with some privacy. And while that was a nice thing for them to do, Justin couldn’t stop thinking that their reasons had been less than charitable.

After all, they had been avoiding him for months now.

“What did I just say?” Britney asked, looking annoyed.

“You’re worried about what you’ll do on the VMAs this year,” Justin said, sighing. He wasn’t sure that Britney had said that, but that had been the subject of her conversation for months now, so he felt he was safe. It was still three months away, and he had a lot of other things in his mind, but Britney couldn’t talk about anything else.

“Well, I’m glad you were listening.” Britney rolled her eyes, and then scooted closer to him. “Baby, what’s wrong? Lately it’s as if your mind was somewhere else.”

“It’s the guys,” Justin confessed. If he couldn’t talk to the girl he loved, who he could trust? “I think they’re tired of me or something. They’ve been avoiding me for months.”

“J, you practically live with them,” Britney pointed out. “I highly doubt they’re avoiding you. Besides, they aren’t that stupid.”

“What do you mean?” Justin frowned.

“Oh, come on, Justin,” Britney smiled, coyly. “The only reason why *N Sync is so popular is because of you. If they shut you off, or something, no one would even remember their names.”

Justin sighed. He hated that particular subject, whenever Britney, his mom, or even Johnny in a couple of secret meetings that the guys didn’t know about, bring it up. He knew he wasn’t ‘better’ than the others - just more marketable. He had talked with Lance about that, when _No Strings Attached_ was being promoted. Lance had understood then.

“That’s not true, Brit,” he said carefully, not wanting to anger Britney. He knew she was dying for him to go solo. “We’re good because we’re a group.”

“Keep telling yourself that, baby,” Britney kissed him, clearly trying to make him believe she was taking him seriously. But she had got him thinking. Not about being a solo artist, or the one reason for *N Sync success, but about the fact that everyone seemed to think that was true.

If the guys had heard those rumors, they could even think that Justin felt that way. It would explain why they were so cold to him lately, why they interrupted their conversations when he was on the room, why they always seemed to be talking in code.

He groaned. The guys probably hated him. But he could make it up for them. As soon as Britney left, he would start working on convincing the guys that he was not leaving them, ever.

* * *

Joey had promised Lance he would practice shutting down his super hearing before he started hearing more things that he shouldn’t. That was why he was floating amidst the clouds hidden from everyone’s eyes – thanking God that there weren’t strong winds that night. He had to get used to his powers, to be able to shut down the super hearing the instant he started hearing to something he shouldn’t know about.

It was a lot harder than he thought. He kept focusing on his friends’ voices, almost unconsciously. Lance, who was talking to his mom on the phone; JC who was writing and rehearsing new songs; Chris, fast asleep and talking in his sleep; and Justin, trying to get JC to talk to him.

Their voices called to him, just as the sound of their names did, which made it confusing. How **he** knew that people was talking about **his** Chris, and not some other Chris, **his** Lance, **his** JC and **his** Justin, he had no idea. But he knew, and he also felt a little guilty that he was listening to private conversations between fans, about what they wanted to see in *N Sync’s show the next night, and other – more private - things before he managed to tune them out.

At least, until someone else mentioned their names and the cycle began again. Joey had found that the only thing that sort of blocked everyone else’s words was to focus on his friends’ voices. Only their voices had the power to make the rest disappear.

Unfortunately, Joey knew that it was not a real solution. He didn’t want to find out his friends’ secrets the same way he had found out Lance’s.

 _“Justin Timberlake is still alive?”_

The voice filtered through his brain, and Joey frowned. He didn’t recognize who was talking. It was a man, with a nasal voice.

 _“I have no idea. They changed the order in the harnesses that day. Timberlake wasn’t wearing the sabotaged one. One of the others did.”_

 _“And how come that one is alive? If you did your work, he would have died instead!”_

Joey’s heart almost stopped. When Chris had told them about what he had overheard as a pigeon, Joey hadn’t believed him. He had thought that perhaps Chris was exaggerating. But the harness he wore was loose, and he had felt it break just as they started the decent. Only the fact that he could fly had saved Joey from falling to the stage.

He had hoped it was only a one-time deal; that whoever had tried to kill Justin would give up.

Obviously, it was not.

 _“If you want to get your payment, you’d better do the job you were hired to do.”_ The first man’s voice sounded distant, and there was a faint echo around it. Joey figured that maybe he was listening to someone talking through a phone. That would make it harder to identify the voice.

 _“It’s taken care of. The motor of their mechanical bulls will do our job. Tomorrow during their concert, Justin will be blown to smithereens.”_ The second man, the killer, had a lower voice, and an accent Joey didn’t identify immediately. He crossed his eyes and concentrated. He didn’t want to forget any detail, and he doubted he had developed super memory over the weekend.

 _“That will hardly look like an accident.”_

 _“We arranged the bull so it will look as if it overheated. No one will suspect anything, since they had so many accidents with the electric equipment. Don’t worry, Mr. E. It’ll be done in no time._ ”

Joey kept listening, but voice #2 hung up the phone. And even if he tried to locate the guy with his telescopic vision and the x-ray vision, there were at least 50 people talking on their phones at the moment. Superman made things look so much easier in the comic books.

He focused his hearing on Lance’s voice, but he seemed to have hung up too. Chris was still asleep, and JC was now arguing with Justin about a bridge on a song. That meant he had to fly unseen to Lance’s window, to see if Lance could figure out what to do.

Joey sure hoped he could.

* * *

“This time we can’t change places. Even if Joey *can* withstand an explosion, everyone would notice it,” Lance said, closing his eyes.

He had been praying for some normalcy in their lives. He could live with the powers. He still hated not being able to work, but he figured that if the others could learn to control their own abilities, he would eventually figure out a way to live with his. Real threats against Justin’s life, however, were far more than Lance could take. Even more so if he was indirectly guilty of giving the would-be killers a window of opportunity and an alibi. Especially since they didn’t have any way to provide evidence except for two conversations overheard by Joey and Chris in circumstances that no one would believe.

“Maybe Joey could stop the bulls from overheating,” Chris suggested, finishing his third bag of potato chips for the day. Lance didn’t want to say anything, but he was starting to wonder about Chris’s seemingly unending hunger. He hoped it was not another weird power, like a black pit in the bottom of his stomach.

“How?” Joey frowned, looking curious.

“I think I know,” JC whispered, next to the door. He was on Justin watch duty, even when they all thought that Justin would spend hours talking to his mom and his younger brother. “His super breath, right?”

“It’s invisible,” Chris said, shrugging. “And we keep our mouths open most of the time during the bull’s sequence, so I don’t think anyone would notice.”

Lance nodded. It made sense. Joey could save Justin at a distance, and no one would figure out how they had done it this time.

Even though it opened a lot of other nasty questions.

“Since we’ll save Justin again, we can expect them to try again.” The only sign of how nervous Lance was when he said that were the lights of the room flickering. “And since we can’t go to the police yet, we have to find out who is trying to kill him.”

“Mr. E?” Joey nodded. “I guess that if I listen to his voice again, I could recognize him. But it’s a big ‘if’ to catch him again.”

“I’d recognize the sabotage guy easily,” Chris added, making Lance feel useless. Of course, Chris and Joey had the really useful powers. Lance was only the brains of the outfit. “If he comes again.”

“That leaves C and me to figure out how to hand them to the police in the event we catch them.”

Lance wasn’t particularly optimistic about catching the would-be killers. But it was better to try than just stay there waiting for one fatal accident to take Justin’s life. Or for the killers to decide it was better to get all of them instead of Justin alone.

* * *

Lance let Joey get into his harness, counting the minutes while the presentation was broadcasted on the big screen. They had done this dozens of times, and Lance had the times memorized. He practically could see a small LED countdown on the corner of his eye, the green numbers going down slowly, by the second.

He frowned, focusing on that corner. It wasn’t that he **thought** he could see the numbers. Although they weren’t there, as a casual wave of his hands right through them proved, he **could** see them. And since none of the others or their assistants seemed to notice, it was obvious to Lance that those numbers were only for him.

He sighed. Another useless annoyance in his life.

Trying to ignore the countdown, which gave them 45 seconds to start their descent, he looked around and saw JC move away from his assistant, while he was putting his vest.

“It’s ok,” JC was saying, smiling. In the dim light, Lance could swear he saw small sparkles around JC’s eyes. “I can do this by myself. Just leave me alone, ok?”

“Ok,” the girl answered, not looking mad or even worried. She just turned around and left.

Behind JC, Chris was frowning, and met Lance’s eyes. Maybe Chris was right. Something weird was going on there.

But then the countdown ended and it was time to go back onstage, and Lance had no more time to worry about that. He had enough with keeping his concentration on not ruining the equipment during the song, and praying that Joey would be able to keep his part of the plan.

When they jumped on the bulls, he glanced at Justin’s, trying to see if there was any outward sign of tampering. He didn’t see any, but when it started to move, it suddenly lit up with green and blue lines. Trying to keep calm, Lance looked down at his own bull, which had the same lines. They all had.

He was looking at the electric currents that made the bulls move.

A cold breeze passed behind his back, and Lance knew it was Joey, trying to keep Justin’s bull cold. But the lights in Justin’s bull were flickering, going faster, and it didn’t seem as if it was working.

Whispering a prayer, Lance focused on the lights inside Justin’s bull. It was a longshot, but it was their only chance. He could see a new countdown. One that started at a minute, and was going down steadly, only to slow down a little when Lance felt the cold breeze of Joey’s breath. So it **was** sort of working, but not enough.

Lance focused on the lights, trying to slow them down, trying, for the first time, to purposely do to the bull what he had been doing to his computers when they turned off, not when they exploded.

To his relief, the lights not only slowed further, as slow as Chris’s bull were going; but also, the countdown stopped.

And then started going backwards.

When the song ended, and Lance got down from his bull, he was smiling.

He had found one use for his power, and saved one of his best friends in the process.

“Shit, do we keep the bulls on ice? Mine was freezing cold!” Justin complained, getting ready for ‘This I Promise You’.

“Has anyone seen my girl?” JC was looking around, worried. Lance bit his lip. The countdown for the next song had returned, blinking on the corner of his left eye, but now that he knew what it was, Lance didn’t mind.

He was never going to need a watch for the rest of his life.

But it was a new development, and coupled with Joey’s telescopic view, and JC’s very real fireworks, it only pointed to one thing. Their powers **kept** evolving.

And despite that they were very different, they all evolved at a similar rate. Since Chris **hadn’t** told them of any new powers, that meant that Chris wasn’t telling them everything. It made no sense that Chris’s powers would become stable before theirs, not when they all had gotten them at the same time, in the same accident.

Lance sighed, going back on the stage. Next meeting, he was going to tell them all what Joey already knew. If **he** had no secrets, maybe Chris would feel more comfortable sharing whatever he was hiding from them.


	3. The cure to superhero's blues

  
JC was standing on the balcony of his hotel room, concentrating on his hand. He had been able to concentrate all the light coming out of his body in just one small, tiny blue spot inside his hand and was trying to dissipate it slowly.

It was three in the morning. No one could see him, and he was determined to learn to control his powers fully. Especially after their last meeting.

After the concert where Lance and Joey had saved Justin again, Lance called for a special meeting. It was Britney’s last night with Justin, so thankfully their friend didn’t suspect anything when they all decided to call it a night.

At least, JC hoped Justin didn’t suspect anything. Maybe they did need a new power. Telepathy. If one of them had telepathy, they could know if Justin was being fooled.

Oh, yes. Telepathy would be a good power. At least, with it there would be no surprises like the ones at the meeting.

Learning that Lance was gay, and that his friend Jesse was in fact, his boyfriend, was not that much of a surprise. Now that JC thought about it, it was, in fact, one of those things that he should’ve known long ago, way before all this happened.

He really had to learn to be more observant.

Joey had admitted that he was scared shitless of his own powers, especially of his strength. None of them had realized that Joey didn’t hug them as much as he used to, and when he did, they barely felt him touching them.

JC, for his part, had confessed to them why he didn’t want Justin to know about their powers. It was a little silly now that he had said it out loud, but very real. He didn’t want Justin to feel left out, and there was no way that it wouldn’t happen because now they had powers and Justin didn’t. Even with everyone telling Justin that he didn’t need them, and that the powers were more of a pain than a blessing, he was afraid that Justin would see the powers as proof that it was the other way around, that they didn’t need him. Either way, the group was screwed if Justin ever learned the truth, or at least, that was JC’s fear.

And the others understood him, and agreed that, at least until they figured out who was trying to kill Justin and why, they wouldn’t tell Justin about their powers.

Chris’s secret, however, had been a shock to them all. That was one meeting no one involved with would **ever** forget.

 _“I shouldn’t use my powers,” Chris said, looking at his feet. “But I just can’t stop. If I don’t pay attention, I’ll start changing into whoever I’m thinking about at the moment, so I have to change back to myself. And then I have to change something else so you won’t notice what’s wrong.”_

 _“What do you mean, Chris?” Lance asked, frowning. “Why shouldn’t you use your powers?”_

 _“I get hungry,” Chris confessed, almost in a whisper, as if he was ashamed._

 _“That’s why you’re always eating?” Joey asked, sitting down next to Chris. “I thought you looked thinner. That’s not you using your powers is it?”_

 _“No. That’s when I forget to use my powers to look like I always did.”_

 _“Show us,” Lance said, his voice low and serious. “You’re using your powers now, aren’t you? Show us how you really look.”_

 _Chris had closed his eyes then, taking a deep breath. And then, to everyone’s shock, his frame seemed to melt. He still looked like Chris, but he looked too thin. Even thinner than when they had met him, back when they rehearsed at an old warehouse with Jason, before Lance even came into their lives. Chris was practically swimming in his clothes and JC could see his collarbones. It was as if Chris hadn’t eaten in a month or two._

 _“Holy shit, Chris! Why didn’t you tell us?!” Joey was the first one to react, grabbing Chris’ too thin shoulder and making him turn around. Chris didn’t flinch, so JC guessed that Joey was getting a very good control of his strength, even under duress. “You look like if you’re starving!”_

 _“I am,” Chris said, resigned. He pulled out one granola bar from his jacket pocket and started eating. “I just… don’t really notice anymore how much weight I’ve lost. I just try to look as I’m supposed to and eat a lot.”_

 _“Obviously, it’s not working.” Lance was thinking, and JC had to fight the desire to go and hug Chris and then order a mega pizza just for him. “This makes no sense. The changes don’t affect any of us like that. I haven’t been hungry since the accident, because I just absorb electricity, Joey’s appetite hasn’t changed, and JC seems to be fine. Maybe your metabolism is burning more calories than before, but even so, your body should’ve adjusted.”_

 _“Well, obviously, my body didn’t get the memo,” Chris grumbled, as he started filling out more._

 _“Don’t do that, Chris, you need to…” Joey started, but Chris interrupted him with a glare._

 _“I can’t look that thin in public,” Chris said, getting away from Joey. “People will start saying I’m bulimic, and while I don’t care much about that, what if someone realizes I wouldn’t have lost this much weight even if I threw up every single meal? Then they could start asking questions we can’t afford to answer.”_

 _“But you can’t starve yourself!” JC protested._

 _“There must be something we’re not seeing,” Lance said, shaking his head. “You need something different for your body, something you’re not getting now.”_

 _“Well, when you find it, let me know.”_

And that had left them with just one burning question.

What did a shapeshifter eat, anyway?

* * *

“So you’re saying we can’t come to visit you?” Kelly complained on the phone. “Joey, we planned this. I was going to join you in New York and stay with you all the way to Philadelphia, remember?”

  
“I remember, Kel, I just… I just don’t think you two should come. Things are a bit crazy here now.” Every word broke Joey’s heart. He wanted nothing more than see Kelly and little Briahna soon, but he also knew he couldn’t trust himself around them. Briahna was too little, too frail. He was not going to risk his daughter’s well being.

“Joey, is everything all right?” Kelly’s tone changed. It was a tone Joey knew how to identify, even before the disco ball upgrade. The tone that meant he was in trouble.

“What do you mean?” he asked, trying to stall the talk he knew was coming.

“Ever since Briahna was born, you’ve been avoiding us,” Kelly said. Joey could tell that she was whispering, but his super-hearing made her sound as if she was next to him. On any other situation, it would be a good thing. Now, it only made Joey feel like a jerk. “I know you said things weren’t going to change, but I can’t help but feeling that you don’t want us there.”

“Oh, Kelly, that’s not true. I love you,” Joey said, tears forming in his eyes. There was no way for him to prove that he was telling the truth and he knew it. Not if he didn’t want to hug her, kiss her, or be in the same room as her. “It’s just that right now, it is not the time. We’re in the middle of the tour and there have been some accidents so I don’t think…”

“You’re always in the middle of a tour,” Kelly said, her voice dangerously low. “Or recording an album, or preparing a tour. That’s why we decided this was never going to be serious, remember? But I need to know where I stand with you.”

“You know where you stand, Kel. I love you. There’s nothing more important in my life than you and Briahna.”

“There’s the band,” Kelly whispered and this time, even Joey’s super-hearing had troubles catching it. She barely breathed the words. “I am not going to make you choose, Joe. I’ve always known that as long as the group is together, I’ll be second to them, and I’m fine with it. I can live with it. But I can’t live with you lying to me about it.”

“Kelly, I’m not lying, I swear.” Joey was on the edge of tears, and he had no idea of how to fix what was wrong. He knew he couldn’t tell Kelly about his powers, not only because it would be betraying his friend’s trust, but also because he knew she wouldn’t believe it until she saw him flying. And then she would be scared, just as he was.

“When will the tour end?” Kelly asked, changing the subject.

“In September,” Joey answered, trying to calm himself. “We’ll finish in México City, and then just the VMA awards. We’ll be mostly done until 2002.”

“I see.” Kelly was silent for a long time, and Joey could feel his own heart breaking. “I love you, Joe, and I understand that right now, the band requires your full attention. But I need you too, so… can we talk again in September? After the tour is done?”

Joey took a deep breath. September was almost three months away. He wasn’t going to wait so long and let his relationship with Kelly rot just because he happened to have superpowers.

He liked Superman, not Spiderman.

“Come here next month.” He said, confidently. He was going to get a grip on his superstrength, even if it killed him. “We’ll be in Huston on the 6th. You can meet us there.”

“You’re sure?” Kelly sounded doubtful.

“Sure. Dad will be here too, and he can babysit Bri for us for a night if you want,” Joey said, trying to smile. It was funny, in a sad way. The distance, the fans, and the rumors had never made Kelly give up on him. But the superpowers, and the lies that came with them, were a different story.

But still, he wasn’t going to give up on Kelly and their daughter. Joey knew he could find the way to make everything work out, either alone or with his friend’s help.

At least, he wasn’t as bad off as Chris.

They all were worried about Chris now, who kept saying he was fine, and kept using his powers even when they asked him not to. Joey and JC were always sneaking food to him, Lance had taken the habit of giving Chris all the food he ordered for himself under the argument that Lance didn’t need to eat anymore, but Chris still looked too thin whenever he wasn’t using his powers to fool everyone.

It frustrated Joey that he couldn’t do more to help.

“All right,” Kelly said, bringing him back to their conversation. “We’ll be there. Love you.”

“Love you too,” Joey answered and hung up the phone.

He stood there, in the middle of the room he shared with JC - because until they found out if JC could stop doing fireworks in his sleep, they realized that Joey was the only one who couldn’t get hurt by them - weighing his options.

He **needed** to learn more about his powers, and he was tired of feeling useless. All his childhood dreams had come true, he was a **real** Superman, and all he had done in almost four months of having powers was feel sorry for himself.

And save Justin’s life. Twice. That had made him feel good.

Joey looked at his bag, and considered his options. He and Lance were alone at the hotel, since JC, Justin and Chris had decided to go out. And now, Joey was sure Lance didn’t have telepathy, since he hadn’t come into the room to tell Joey he was insane.

The idea that had formed in Joey’s mind sure **sounded** insane.

But he was feeling restless, and he had to do something with his powers besides worrying about them. Maybe it was some new instinct that came with them, or maybe it was just that Joey had read one too many comic books when he was younger, but he **needed** to use them to do something. To help.

Oh, yes. He was insane.

He rummaged into his bag until he found the shirt he was sure he had packed, as well as a hoodie to cover his hair. If he was going to do it, he was going to do it right. Then he grabbed one of Chris’s bandanas, and covered his face with it. The effect on the mirror was somewhat the opposite of what he was going for. With the gray hoodie and the white bandana, he looked like someone about to rob a corner store rather than a superhero.

Not even the Superman shirt under the gray hoodie broke the effect.

On the other hand, there was nothing in his reflection that would identify him as ‘Joey Fatone from *N Sync’, and that was exactly what he wanted.

Lance would kill him if anyone recognized him.

Satisfied, and very aware that if he stopped to think about his actions he wouldn’t do anything, he opened the window and jumped outside.

It was time to see if his stupid powers could be used to do something good.

* * *

The club was loud and dark and didn’t look different from any other clubs in the country where they had been before. The one different thing was the cluster of girls around JC, following every one of his words.

Chris sighed, took a long sip of his beer – that still tasted like water to him - and looked around for Justin, who was talking with a pretty blonde that looked a little like Britney if you squinted.

The truth was that Chris didn’t want to be there, but they all had agreed that Justin couldn’t be left alone until they figured out who Mr. E was and why he wanted Justin dead.

Lance had asked for time to learn to control the new ways his powers seemed to work, while Joey wanted to call Kelly, so JC and Chris were the designated babysitters for the night. Chris wondered at first why they were both needed, but once the swarm of fangirls surrounded JC, he understood.

JC alone would never be able to hold off all the girls **and** keep an eye on Justin.

Chris didn’t dance with anyone, choosing to stay at the table in the VIP zone that they had claimed and keeping an eye on everyone. He kept his attention divided between JC and his growing harem, and Justin and not-Britney.

Chris didn’t like not-Britney. There was something about her that just rubbed him the wrong way, in her laugh, in the way she had just latched to Justin, and ignored them even when Justin was doing his best to include Chris, JC and whoever was attached to JC’s arm in the conversation. She said that her name was Jean, but Chris would’ve bet his newest car that it wasn’t true.

“I’m going to get our drinks, do you want anything, Chris?” Justin and ‘Jean’ walked to the table, smiling. Jean sat down, giggling at something that Justin had said.

“Another beer,” Chris answered, showing Justin his almost empty bottle. “Thanks.”

“I’ll be back soon,” Justin waved, leaving Chris alone with Jean. Chris smiled at her, weakly, and was starting to try and figure out how to start a new conversation, when JC came back, mysteriously alone.

“What happened?” Chris asked, frowning. It was the first time all evening that JC didn’t have a girl hanging on him.

“I have no idea.” JC sat down, looking exhausted. Chris could see small sparks around his eyes, and he hoped would be mistaken for glitter. “I just asked them to let me rest for half an hour, and they all left.”

“You have polite fans,” Jean said, still smiling her fake smile. “Justin has to beat them away with a stick.”

“We’ve noticed that,” Chris answered, hoping she would get the hint.

“And what are you doing here, Jean?” JC asked, a bit more direct. He had disliked Jean from the get go too, because she looked too much like Britney. It wouldn’t be the first time that an actress was sent to try and create rumors about them. The lights around his eyes had finally settled on a pattern, and they were only obvious if one knew what to look for. “You know that Justin’s taken.”

“I was hired to drug Justin, get him in a car and cause a fatal accident,” Jean said, not losing her smile.

“What?!” Both JC and Chris looked at her, hoping for a punch line. But she just blinked, still smiling. Chris frowned, she looked like one of the girls who followed JC. A little vacant.

“I was hired to drug Justin, get him in a car and cause a fatal accident,” she repeated.

Chris raised his hand, so JC would let him talk. “Could you repeat that?” he asked Jean, who just glared at him.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t say anything.”

“JC, ask her,” Chris whispered. There was a crazy theory running through his mind, but it fitted with what he was seeing.

“Why are you here, Jean?” JC asked, following Chris’s cue.

“I was hired to drug Justin, get him in a car and cause a fatal accident,” she said, smiling brightly. She looked like a fembot, now that Chris thought about it.

“Ask her something else,” Chris prompted.

“Who hired you?” JC asked, the lights around his eyes changing colors. Chris smiled, triumphantly. While he seemed to be immune, apparently JC was a walking mind control drug.

“Mr. E.”

Chris wanted to make more questions, but he could see Justin at the bar, getting ready to come back. Biting his lip, he came to a decision. “JC, tell her to go. Quick.”

JC nodded, apparently getting his idea, so he smiled at Jean.

“Jean, you’re going to get up from this table, go to the nearest police station and tell them you were going to kill Justin. Answer all their questions, and stay there. Do not call Mr. E., not even when they offer you a phone call. And you won’t remember this conversation.”

“OK.” Jean said, getting up. Once she was out of view, JC turned to see Chris.

“That was creepy. Now what?”

“Now, it’s my turn to distract Justin,” Chris said, closing his eyes and concentrating in Jean’s shape. Once he thought he had it, he opened his eyes and looked at JC. “You go back to the hotel and tell Lance what happened. I’ll stay here for a while and then take Justin back. Just in case someone else wants to see him with ‘Jean’.”

“Don’t over do this,” JC said, getting up, just as Justin arrived.

“Where’s Chris?” Justin asked, putting the beer on the table.

“He had a headache,” JC lied smoothly, smiling as Chris, now looking as Jean, nodded discreetly. “I’m going to take him back to the hotel, he’s waiting for me in the car.”

“Want me to go with you?” Justin offered. He looked honestly worried which made Chris feel like an ass. “Jean wouldn’t mind, would you?”

“No, no. It’s ok. You stay, have some fun. Chris would feel terrible if you had to cut short our only free night here,” JC said, thinking quick on his feet. “We can handle it.”

“You sure?” Justin frowned. “I don’t know…”

“Why don’t you stay a while?” Chris said, trying to sound as sweet as he could. “Maybe half an hour. That way, you can honestly say that Chris didn’t ruin your night.”

“Yeah, Justin, you can stay,” JC said, and Chris frowned upon seeing the lights around JC’s eyes change from a pale white to a pale green.

Predictably, Justin’s gaze turned vacant and their friend smiled.

“Sure. We can stay.”

Chris sighed. They were going to have to talk to JC about his mind control before he accidentally erased Justin’s brain.

* * *

Lance had turned off all the lights in his room, unplugged all electric appliances, and was sitting alone in the dark. He had asked for the single room this time because he wanted to experiment a little with his powers, and sharing the room with any of the guys would keep him from concentrating.

He focused on the energy he could feel inside the walls, inside his body, and very slowly, tried to direct it into the TV. He figured that if he could control his powers enough to turn on all the appliances in his room, he could risk another laptop later.

He **was** going to get internet access again, sometime soon.

To his amazement, the TV turned on.

He had took the batteries out of the remote to avoid any extra influx of energy so he just let the local news go on as he concentrated on the next part of his exercise. He could feel the currents in his body become stronger, and before letting all that energy concentrate on the TV, he let it flow to the bedside lamp which turned on immediately.

Lance had theorized that his body had become a giant conductor, and so, he needed to find outlets for the energy he gathered from the atmosphere. The good news was that, if he managed to control it, he would never have to pay an electric bill in his life.

The news was talking about the latest celebrity scandal and Lance was only half listening to them when he turned on the other two lamps in the room. If he managed to keep the energy flow stable for half an hour, he would consider the experiment a success.

“The fire downtown is being controlled, however, there has been a strange development according to our sources on site,” the reporter on the screen said, and Lance glanced to the screen. If he could pay attention to the news **and** keep everything in his room powered up, it would be a great improvement. “We’re with you, Mike.”

“Thanks, Ron,” the new reporter was standing on a street corner of the city, and behind him, Lance could see a building on fire. There were fire trucks, ambulances, and many cops around, but unlike in other emergencies Lance had seen, everyone was looking up. “As we reported earlier, the fire is now under control. However while we had previously said that there were victims to be expected since the fire had started on the upper floors, now we can say that thanks to a miracle, this fire hasn’t taken any lives.”

The camera panned up, and Lance suddenly understood why everyone seemed to be standing. From one of the upper windows, among the smoke, there was first just a shadow, as if someone had jumped out. But soon it was clear that the shadow wasn’t falling, and its shape was that of a man carrying a woman. The man’s face wasn’t visible. He was wearing a gray hoodie and a white bandana to cover his hair and face, but Lance knew who it was.

There weren’t that many Superman fans who could fly and wore designer jeans.

Lance could’ve managed to keep his anger under control if Joe, after leaving his last rescued woman on the ground, hadn’t taken flight again, standing with his back at the cameras and then, in a move straight out of a comic book put out the fire with his freeze breath.

“Fuck!” Lance growled, and all his careful control evaporated. The electric currents inside his body roamed free and with a bang, the whole hotel was submerged in darkness.

* * *

JC was about to push the button of the elevator when suddenly all the lights in the lobby of the hotel went out simultaneously. It took him a couple of seconds to realize what had happened because even when the lobby was completely dark, he could see without problems. A glance at the mirror between the two elevators solved that mystery. His eyes were shining.

Very careful not to call attention to himself, JC walked to the stairs and started going up. He had a feeling that Lance had something to do with the blackout and if that was true, the lights wouldn’t be coming up again any time soon.

JC sighed. Lance had gotten a lot better with his self control. If he had lost it so completely, it meant that something really bad had happened, and the news that there were still assassins after Justin was not going to make Lance any happier.

* * *

“You ok, Jean?” Justin asked Chris, a couple of minutes after JC had left. “You look worried.”

“I’m fine, Justin, don’t worry,” Chris answered, trying to mimic Jean’s fake smile. “I might be a little tired.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot! You’ve got to work tomorrow!” Justin looked honestly worried, and that only made Chris felt worse. “Do you want me to get you to your home?”

“No, no,” Chris shook his head emphatically. He had no idea where Jean lived, and he didn’t want to be roaming around town with Justin just looking for an empty house. Knowing Justin, he would insist on staying until ‘she’ got safely inside. “I’m ok. Why don’t we go back to your hotel?”

Justin looked down, not particularly amused. “Jean, I told you. I wasn’t looking for a hook up. I just wanted to dance.” Chris bit his lip, realizing his mistake. Of course, Justin wouldn’t be looking for a one night stand. He wasn’t Joey.

“Oh, I don’t… I mean, I wasn’t… Let me try this again, ok?” Chris said, thinking quickly. He wanted to leave the club with Justin in case Jean had accomplices looking for her. “I just want to talk, ok? It’s been fun being with you and all, but you’re a little too young for me… my tastes, and shit, I don’t remember what I told you when we started dancing but if I gave you the wrong idea I was temporarily drunk.”

To Chris’s surprise, Justin started to laugh.

“That’s weird. You sounded just like Chris right now,” Justin said, but he looked relieved. “So… just talk?”

“Just talk,” Chris answered, giving Justin a much more sincere smile. “You look like you can use any friend you can find. You know, a girl who is not looking to take Britney’s place.”

“And you’re not?” Justin looked at him suspiciously.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Chris gestured theatrically. “I’m honestly not one of the weird fans.”

“Chris says the ones who say are not weird are the weirdest,” Justin pointed out, but he seemed to cave in. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride wherever you want to go.”

Chris bit his lip. He really didn’t have more chances to fuck things up.

“I sort of lied to you,” he said, trying to sound coy. “I’m not a local girl.”

“I figured that long ago, Jean. It’s ok. You’re following us, right?” Justin was smiling warmly at Chris, making him feel like a heel.

“No! No, no,” Chris hurried to answer. “Well, yes, but not like that. I want to be a roadie. I’d… like to help.”

If anything, that was the wrong thing to say. Justin frowned immediately, and moved away from him.

“You’re one of Britney’s friends, aren’t you?”

“What?” Chris blinked.

“It’s ok. I know she doesn’t quite trust me when we’re not together,” Justin smiled sadly. “But I haven’t seen you with her. Are you a hairdresser? New dancer?”

“None,” Chris frowned. “I’m… Joey’s cousin. I was trying to see him today. To ask him… for a job.”

Justin didn’t seem to be buying Chris’s latest lie, and Chris wished JC was there with him. At least JC could just flash Justin into believing him, no matter what JC said.

“Come on,” Justin said, offering Chris his hand. “Let’s go back to the hotel so you can talk with your ‘cousin’. I’m sure Joey will love to see you.”

Chris sighed. It was obvious that Justin didn’t believe him, but that was good. They would be with Tiny on the way back to the hotel, and once they were with the others, JC would cover for him. Best case scenario, Justin would learn not to trust strange girls at dark clubs and that would be better in the long run. They couldn’t stay next to him every single minute of the day until they found Mr. E.

Once inside the car, Justin didn’t make much small talk and Chris had to stop himself from fidgeting in his seat. He wanted to go back to his real shape; an hour or so as Jean was already taxing his energy reserves, as the most he had ever done had been turn into a pigeon for half an hour.

As his stomach started to grumble, he wished he could transform what little fat he still had on his body into food. Proteins. Calories. Something so he wouldn’t feel hungry.

But Chris let himself think things could still work somehow until they arrived to the hotel. All the lights were out, which was really bad. Chris could think of at least a dozen reasons why a five-star hotel would lose all its electric power all at once, and at least five had to do with Lance being angry.

“What the hell?” Justin said, obviously also confused over the lack of electric power.

Chris was going to answer that he had no idea, when a man on the street gave a huge yell, pointing at something in the sky.

“Look! Up in the Sky!”

Everyone around looked up immediately, and Chris felt his stomach drop to his knees.

“Oh, my God! It’s just like they said on the radio!” a girl, standing next to the man exclaimed, pointing too. “I can’t believe it’s for real!”

“Can’t be for real! It has to be some sort of trick,” someone else said, frowning. “There’s no way that’s a man!”

“Oh, wow!”

It was Justin’s expression what made Chris finally look up to se what everyone else was seeing. It was too high to actually distinguish any features, but just a couple of feet away from the last story of the hotel, there was the silhouette of a man, seemingly floating on thin air, high enough for there not to be doubts that he was suspended with wires or something similar.

And there were guys with tv cameras running around the corner, and some tourists were getting out their own cameras and Chris wondered if the blackout had been caused the moment Lance figured out Joey was flying outside in plain sight of everyone.

Because the flying silhouette had to be Joey. Chris really doubted there was another guy who had been hit by moonlight enhanced by a defective disco ball **and** gained the power of flight.

Although that possibility was just a little less frightening than someone sending assassins after Justin, and at the moment, a lot less worrisome than facing a very angry Lance.

Chris was convinced that soon, Lance would figure out how to electrocute them. And the only one invulnerable to that was Joey.

* * *

In Joey’s defense, in the moment he had realized he had been spotted by the cameras near the hotel, he took off, flying in another direction, fast enough so the onlookers wouldn’t lose him, and, once he was sure they wouldn’t connect him to the hotel where *N Sync was staying, he made as if to land on a nearby building, then ran away at superspeed so no one would see him.

By the time he came back, Lance had gotten his anger under control, and the hotel had power again.

Joey had **almost** ruined his careful planning when he got in the room and was barely out of his shirt when Justin came in, excited about seeing a **real** flying man. Behind Justin, JC and a blonde girl who could pass as Britney’s sister were watching, looking quite uncomfortable as if they **knew** that Joey had just come in through the window. When Justin had asked Joey if he recognized his ‘cousin’, Joey had quickly figured out that the girl was Chris and that there had been a lot more happening that night than just him going out and using his powers to help.

Unfortunately, Justin **had** seen him, and even when he hadn’t realized that the flying man was Joey, he kept them awake checking the various footage of what Joey had been doing all night and thus, Joey hadn’t been able to be alone with Lance, JC and Chris until the next when they were ushered into the different buses and JC told Justin that it was a very good idea if Justin took the two man bus to call Britney while the others gave him some privacy.

“JC has this cool mind control thing going on now,” Chris explained, as he got in the bus. “Creepy as hell, but useful to figure out who wants to kill J.”

“What were you thinking Joe?” Lance asked, as soon as they were safely inside the bus. “You were **filmed** using your powers!”

“I couldn’t just stay in the hotel and do nothing but float up to the ceiling,” Joey said, not looking at Lance. “We have these great powers that we fear more than anything and… I figured maybe they could be good for something **else** besides saving Justin’s life.”

“We talked about this, we can’t risk being discovered, Joey,” Chris sounded tired, and Joey didn’t blame him. For what he understood, he had spent around six hours pretending to be Jean, which had obviously taxed his energy reserves. He said he wasn’t using his powers at the moment, and the truth was that he looked quite thin, but not as dangerously thin as he had looked before. Joey suspected that at some time in the night, Chris must have found whatever he needed to survive, maybe even accidentally.

“But you know I’m right,” Joey pointed out. “Chris, you’re the one who’s always talking about using the money we got to help those in need. How are superpowers different?”

Chris looked down at his hands, ashamed. “They aren’t, you’re right. But that doesn’t change the fact if we’re discovered, we’re not going to be of help to anyone.”

“Joey, you’re the only one of us who has powers that can be of help to people,” Lance pointed out, but he wasn’t that angry anymore. “JC so far needs to be in close contact with people for his mental control to work, and the light explosions are dangerous, Chris is pretty good with the spy thing, but until we find out what he needs to eat he could hurt himself, and I think last night I proved my control is shaky at best. We would end up hurting more than helping.”

“Lance,” Joey started saying, wondering what he could do to make Lance see why he **needed** to go out and do something before he went insane, but Lance raised his hand to stop him.

“But at the same time, you’re right. We can’t just stay in the bus and hope that all this will go away on its own,” Lance finished, with a resigned smile. “You’re sure *no one* saw your face?”

“I used one of Chris’s bandanas to cover it, and my old hoodie to cover my hair,” Joey said, smiling. He didn’t need permission from his friends to go out and help people, but since they were the only four persons in the whole world who could understand him, he sure didn’t want to get in a fight with them.

“That will be a good disguise until one of our fans gets a picture,” JC shook his head, smiling. “Taylor told me that he found a site where they compare our clothes.”

“And someone sooner or later would figure out that the flying man follows *N Sync around,” Chris sighed. “We would need a very good cover story for that.”

“Wait… Are we actually discussing a secret identity for me?” Joey asked, amused. He had thought that, at best, Lance would tell him just to be careful.

“What? You think we can’t make a believable cover up without PR’s help?” Lance laughed, more at ease. “Look, if **we** are going to do this, we’re going to do it right. No matter what comic book say, a pair of glasses aren’t going to make people forget your face.”

“Besides, it could be useful later,” JC said, sighing. “Last night, ‘Mr. E’ sent a girl to kill Justin. He’s getting creative. If we have a superhero following us around, he might stop trying.”

“We still have to figure out who Mr. E. is,” Chris sighed, sounding almost defeated. The truth was that they had no idea who would want to kill Justin.

Joey opened his mouth to say that he was sure that it had to be someone who didn’t know them, probably trying to get famous by killing a famous person when Chris’s cell rang.

“Hey, oh, hi Lynn,” Chris smiled as he answered, but soon the smile turned into a frown. “Not right now, but I saw him this morning before going on the busses. Yes, our busses… No, Britney hasn’t been around in weeks… Hell, no! No, Lynn, I swear, Justin is fine. Whatever you heard is a lie. Yes, I promise I’ll get him to call you as soon as we stop. No, don’t worry. I understand. I would be the same way if I had heard that about my sisters. Sure, don’t worry. Bye.”

“What’s wrong, Chris?” JC asked.

“I… Joey, could you check if Justin is in the other bus?” Chris shook his head. Puzzled, Joey did as he was asked, focusing his x-ray vision so he would get a clear view of the two man bus where Justin was at the moment rolling his eyes at something Britney told him.

“He’s fine, why?”

Chris looked at them with a grim expression.

“Lynn just heard on the radio that Justin and Britney were involved in a fatal crash,” he said, before focusing on JC. “That’s what Jean said she had been paid to do, and apparently Mr. E. was confident enough that she would succeed that he leaked the info to the press.”

“Then he’s getting really serious,” Lance answered, and the lights around the bus crackled dangerously. “We have to figure out who is he and what the hell Justin did to piss him off this much before he decides to try again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oops. Sorry for reposting this but I had a brain-freeze moment and I deleted it when I was going to upload the last chapter. This time, it's here to stay, but I'll post the episodes one each day so to not spam anyone.


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